Note: this won't look great, I don't have my MBP to make segments bold and underlined and colorful for easy reading so bare with me until I get to edit this.

Doesn't matter if you've done this stuff 100 times or if this is your first time, you're bound to miss something. This Checklist is to make sure you don't miss any steps so you can avoid errors (or worse, messing your device up more than it already is) and get it right the first time. Or the second time Not having to spend 3 hours a night on it is the goal here. Even I forget something or accidentally skip steps

Now, all of this requires SHSHs to be saved so if you don't have them, this will be of no use to you! If you have a functional device as of now and you are *NOT* on 4.3.4/4.2.9+ and you have no SHSHs saved as of now ... you still have hope. How? This is included in the following post. REMEMBER, this is not meant to be a detailed guide to walk you through the entire process. If you have NO IDEA or very LITTLE IDEA of the process or what you need, I encourage you to view the other sticky that was meant to guide you step by step (it would help if you also google some more illustrated, detailed guides as well). You can find the other sticky HERE.

**I am excluding 4.3.4 and 4.3.5 (VZW 4.2.9 and 4.2.10) bc those are silly useless fw updates that nobody should be updating to anyway.**

Nice guide, i.Annie One question... I'm about to try to make the jump from 4.1 to a custom 4.3.3 with saved SHSHs (previously created with redsn0w). Can I (theoretically) skip the steps between 1 and 5 and put the phone into DFU or does it require the DFU generated by redsn0w?

oh yeah one more question... does it matter which redsnow? I notice you have rc19, I have rc14 and also 0.9.9b6

[edit] Done and dusted, i.Annie you are my new hero. You've been so very helpful over the past few weeks as I have struggled with downgrades and upgrades and downgrdes again... now my 3GS is on 4.3.3 and I couldnt be happier. I'll probably go 4S or 5 in the future, but for now, this is just perfect.

SHSHs are unique to each device. You cannot use SHSHs from somebody else. If you don't have them saved you can't restore to any fw version except for what you have SHSHs for and the currently signed fw version.

The Following User Says Thank You to i.Annie For This Useful Post:

OK understand and thanks for your advise. Another question is somehow my iphone got virus(always show somebody picture after reboot) then i follow the internet advise to delete some of the file and i also accidentally delete my cydia. Will it affect the my SHSH?

OK understand and thanks for your advise. Another question is somehow my iphone got virus(always show somebody picture after reboot) then i follow the internet advise to delete some of the file and i also accidentally delete my cydia. Will it affect the my SHSH?

that will not affect your ability to save your SHSH, however that will not allow you to install any tweaks that allows you to customize your iphone